beautiful palm-fronds and the huge pacova-leaves stamped the peculiar look of the tropics on the whole landscape—­it was like passing by water through a gigantic botanical garden.  In the afternoon we got an elderly toucan, a piranha, and a reasonably edible side-necked river-turtle; so we had fresh meat again.  We slept as usual in earshot of rapids.  We had been out six weeks, and almost all the time we had been engaged in wearily working our own way down and past rapid after rapid.  Rapids are by far the most dangerous enemies of explorers and travellers who journey along these rivers.

Next day was a repetition of the same work.  All the morning was spent in getting the loads to the foot of the rapids at the head of which we were encamped, down which the canoes were run empty.  Then for thirty or forty minutes we ran down the swift, twisting river, the two lashed canoes almost coming to grief at one spot where a swirl of the current threw them against some trees on a small submerged island.  Then we came to another set of rapids, carried the baggage down past them, and made camp long after dark in the rain—­a good exercise in patience for those of us who were still suffering somewhat from fever.  No one was in really buoyant health.  For some weeks we had been sharing part of the contents of our boxes with the camaradas; but our food was not very satisfying to them.  They needed quantity and the mainstay of each of their meals was a mass of palmitas; but on this day they had no time to cut down palms.  We finally decided to run these rapids with the empty canoes, and they came down in safety.  On such a trip it is highly undesirable to take any save necessary risks, for the consequences of disaster are too serious; and yet if no risks are taken the progress is so slow that disaster comes anyhow; and it is necessary perpetually to vary the terms of the perpetual working compromise between rashness and over-caution.  This night we had a very good fish to eat, a big silvery fellow called a pescada, of a kind we had not caught before.

One day Trigueiro failed to embark with the rest of us, and we had to camp where we were next day to find him.  Easter Sunday we spent in the fashion with which we were altogether too familiar.  We only ran in a clear course for ten minutes all told, and spent eight hours in portaging the loads past rapids down which the canoes were run; the balsa was almost swamped.  This day we caught twenty-eight big fish, mostly piranhas, and everybody had all he could eat for dinner, and for breakfast the following morning.

The forenoon of the following day was a repetition of this wearisome work; but late in the afternoon the river began to run in long quiet reaches.  We made fifteen kilometres, and for the first time in several weeks camped where we did not hear the rapids.  The silence was soothing and restful.  The following day, April 14, we made a good run of some thirty-two kilometres.  We passed a little